Edinburgh is to go into level three of coronavirus restrictions from Monday at 6am Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed.
The capital city will join West Lothian, Midlothian, East Lothian and a number of other areas across Scotland in being placed under strict level three Covid restrictions.
The First Minister said that while the council areas have been placed in tier three for now, she hopes Edinburgh and East Lothian can move back into tier two 'as soon as possible' based on the prevalence of the virus.
The First Minister has also asked people in level three and four council areas not to travel to any other local authority areas "unless it is for an essential purpose."
The essential purposes include people who need to work, travel for health care, have caring duties or need to travel to a shop for necessary reasons.
The First Minister warned that if people travel between local areas, the country could end up in a situation where there is 'another national lockdown.'
Nicola Sturgeon said: "If any area is at level three, our aim collectively, between those who live there, the local authority, the local health services and local businesses, must be to bring it down to level two and then to level one - not to allow it to drift to level four."
"We will use level four when transmission is extremely high and risking the capacity of the NHS to cope."
The First Minister added that she hopes to look at moving some areas "particularly East Lothian and Edinburgh" from tier three to level two 'in a few weeks.'
She said: "Based on the data we are considering, if progress in suppressing the virus is maintained, we would hope that at a very early review point, we will be able to consider moving some areas - I think East Lothian in particular and possibly Edinburgh - from level three to level two reasonably soon. I cannot make that commitment now, but I hope we will be able to confirm it in the coming weeks."
